jad1

Who cares what you believe. You're not judge and jury of the quality of other posters' fandom. Get over yourself.

They have talent. They lack fundamentals and urgency. There are no Pecas or Drurys on this team. Just a bunch of Roys and Vaneks. This is what happens when you have a GM that is obsessed with icing the youngest team on the ice year after year. A dozen more guys like Zucker on short term contracts could have helped the young players on the roster over the last 5 years. But Adams didn't want to add "blockers" to the team. Hell, even at this point we're all waiting for a 19 year old to get healthy, because he might be able to fix the top six. We see the shortcomings of this roster game after game, yet we tune in every night hoping things will finally 'click' and they'll miraculously transform into a team that competes every shift, and is capable with keeping pace with lower end playoff teams. Ruff will need to work harder than any 60 year old man should have to to fix this mess.

The power play hasn't worked since opponents started over playing Thompson's one timer from the faceoff circle. The problems are not unique to the power play, they the same as the core problems with the roster. This team is weak at puck retrieval, weak in front of the net, overpass in danger areas, weak with the puck when pressured, and overall have an innate lack of urgency, detail, and desperation in their game. To fix this, Ruff will need to break these players down and rebuild their game with a focus on fundamentals. It's going to take months, not games.

The have two offensive defensemen who were drafted first overall. And they have another OD drafted 4th overall. Why can't those guys drive entry into the zone?

Well that was a home loss to the worst team in the conference who was two defensemen down half the game. So, you know, progress?

Maybe the PA announcer has something in common with your user name.

Can you coach urgency into a team? Because it's not built into the DNA of the Sabres core players.

Defense just standing around and doing nothing. Again.

From the net out, the Sabres are just a bad team.

That was a lazy penalty.

Clean hit. Horrible landing.

Haven't we been acknowledging our goaltending issues on a consistent basis for the last 4 years?

In other words, he's turned into Ville Leino.

I'd choose "wistful." And now I feel like sitting next to a wishing well while staring into a meadow trying to recapture that euphoria of the Sabres spending a whole two hours of October in second place of the Atlantic division. Will I ever feel that way again?!?!?

They're not the last team in at this point. They've played 10 games, and are 4-5-1 for 9 points. They are tied with 5 other teams with 9 points, but all of those 5 teams have at least one game-in-hand. With tie breakers, they are 7th in the division, 12th in the conference, and 23rd in the league. They are on pace for 73.8 points this season. So at the 10 game mark, they are on par with where they finished last year, in terms of playoff positioning, and behind the pace of last season's 84 points.

After 5 years under Adams? Not ready for this type of test? Has any other GM in the history of the NHL held job for 5 years with no playoff appearances?

I'd say that the general consensus would be that if you had a GM who lasted 5 years with one team that would indicate that the team is probably one of the better teams in the league. What you say is true, so it's mind-boggling that we just shrug off a Monday night home loss early in the season as, eh, maybe they'll learn something from this. Meanwhile the architect of the malaise carries on with no accountability.

After 5 years of Adams, we still have no expectation that the Sabres can compete with the best teams in the league.

It already has impacted this game. The Sabres have shunned experienced coaching the last 13 years. The coaches that they did hire did not ingrain strong fundamental hockey into the core of young players on the team today. Instead they focused on individual development and life coaching. This has caused problems that we continue to see with Sabres playing today. On the first Wings goal, there were 3 Sabres behind the goal, and only one was challenging the puck, causing the Sabres to be outmanned in the slot. The 2nd goal, Dahlin was just outmuscled in front of his own net. On the shorthanded goal, Dahlin made a bone headed play on the point. These 3 plays are common to the Sabres general lack of urgency, structure and fundamentals that we have seen from the team last 13 years. And I was wrong to say the Sabres aren't addressing these issues. I believe the hiring of Ruff is a good attempt to address the issues. Fixing them is the next challenge. There is still a lot of work to do.

They need to address the issues that have caused them to suck for 13 years (and actually, it's longer than that). They haven't done that YET this season. When they do, they will no longer suck.

He's basically where most of us were back in 2018.

We're having the same conversations about Dahlin that we had when Krueger was coach.